LFS and Fraps?

[Roadie]

When I try to record a video in LFS with Fraps, I get about 8fps. No matter what I adjust, its 8fps. It records fine in halo, 1280x1024, full size, but not LFS.

[sil3ntwar]

It will always reduce the frame rate as it is capturing every frame and making a video. Some games do work better for others. To make a video in LFS you should set fraps to capture at 20fps then save a replay in lfs and play it back. Play it through to just before the point you want and then make the replay slow down to 1/4 or 1/2 speed by pushing F2 a couple of times. After capturing the movie you can then increase the FPS by 2 or 4 times to get the real speed.

This is the easiest way i have found of capturing vids in lfs.

[Roadie]

ive tried that... doesnt come out good, and still records at 8 or less fps.

and yes i know it will reduce the framerate, to what i set it to record at.. i get like 100+ fps in lfs, and when i hit record, it drops to 8. But in Halo, it drops to what i set it to record to, and stays there.

[sil3ntwar]

LFS is very CPU intesive. It needs the CPU to calculate the physics. There is no way to avoid the frame rate drop without upgrading your CPU. Halo will record better because there isnt as much for the cpu to calculate in game.

My computer is a peice of crap but making watchable videos is still possible: http://www.sil3ntwar.com/rollovers.avi

[Roadie]

i have a 3.5Ghz P4, and 1gb of ram.. that should be more than enough.

[J.B.]

Try setting minimum sleep to zero.

[Roadie]

it wont go under 1...

[Fragmatic]

Try disabling AA and AF and then recording.

[Roadie]

did that.

[Mazstermind]

Try setting minimum sleep to zero.

what does minimum sleep mean? or whats that setting for?

[Takumi_Project.d]

actually i have noticed this problem also. locked lfs to 30fps, ran the replay at half speed and set fraps to record 15fps! 640x480, it appeared it couldnt even manage that, i got less than 15fps. p4 3.2 here.

[tristancliffe]

I set LFS to 25fps, run fraps and record at... 25fps :D

Didn't do anything, it just worked like that. Oh, and I record at half size. Any bigger or faster is too much for a 7200rpm hard drive to cope with. And I use 4xAA and 4xAF whilst videoing too :D

P4 2.8 with 1GB ram, 9800Pro All-in-Wonder

[Ryanry64]

I know this is a very old topic, but I'm having this exact same problem and don't see the reason in starting a new topic when this one exists.

I've recently been trying to record LFS using fraps. But, 8fps.

Lowered all settings. 8fps.

Half size. 8fps.

I can't work it out, I can record from rFactor at 50fps at full size, but with LFS, 8fps.

If anyone has any possible solution to this, pweez help :shy:

System Specs :

AMD X2 4400
nVidia 7800GTX 256mb
1GB RAM
200GB RAID
nForce 4 Mobo

[filur]

Fraps uses a lossless compression codec which needs CPU cycles, it also writes massive amounts of data to your harddrive which needs CPU cycles. Trying to record in 1280x1024 results in 896,000 more pixels over 640x480 and 1,114,112 more pixels over 512x384, which results in more needed CPU, which you don't have even with a 3.5g running lfs.

If you do only get 8 fps in .25x speed, that's still 32 fps in realtime, which isn't too shabby.

Try putting LFS in windowed mode, resize to your desired video size and record, if you get 8fps at any size something else is wrong.

Edit: about minimum sleep, not that i've ever noticed a difference, but i guess it should be increased to let other threads work while LFS "sleeps", not decreased.

[r4ptor]

I don't have that big problem when recording, but I did notice that Fraps ignores the AA when recording, as if there were non at all :(

Any solution for this? Beside recording at a much higher res and then downscale :)

Im on a Nvidia based gfx board.

[deggis]

Dunno but you wouldn't probably get very good FPS with AA (or what card did you have?). Recording with higher reso is better solution.

[r4ptor]

Yeah, It would affect framerate, but it's just so wierd - when I play back forexample a replay, the AA works just fine - when I vire the captured video later, it doesn't have any AA on it - LfS isn't the only it happends in - same thing in rFactor

[mrodgers]

Just to add my recent experience. Athalon 64 3500, 1 gig memory, and the new ATI onboard chip with 256 shared memory. I locked LFS at 30 fps and 1024x768x32. Ran Fraps at 30 fps record and half size. I ran the replays at full speed and everything ran fine. The clips ended up at 640x480 and ran smooth, even on the Celeron 1.2, 256 ram, and NO graphics at work.

[wheel4hummer]

I set LFS to 25fps, run fraps and record at... 25fps :D

Didn't do anything, it just worked like that. Oh, and I record at half size. Any bigger or faster is too much for a 7200rpm hard drive to cope with. And I use 4xAA and 4xAF whilst videoing too :D

P4 2.8 with 1GB ram, 9800Pro All-in-Wonder

Same here, except a 9600XT

[Jaakko_M]

I've recently been trying to record LFS using fraps. But, 8fps.
I can't work it out, I can record from rFactor at 50fps at full size, but with LFS, 8fps.

If anyone has any possible solution to this, pweez help :shy:

System Specs :

AMD X2 4400
nVidia 7800GTX 256mb
1GB RAM
200GB RAID
nForce 4 Mobo

I have x2 too but @ 2,7ghz, 2gb ram and 7800GT. FPS is easily 60 with low resolution. I dont know what is your problem but i can confirm that your puter should be enough good.

Are you sure that your fraps is newest version and all drivers are up to date too?

[indo420]

have you guys thought about outputing the video to a DVR or VCR then using a USB capture Device to put it back on the hard drive?

works great for me. what i get in any game is the fps im recording at.

[indo420]

did that a while back and to be honest the quality was nowwhere near as good .. and i'd have to go buy a new capture card / device ... and to be honest .. i'm not that arsed :)

ya thw quality isn't as good unless your using a DVR and a real capture card.

FRAPS is a good program i use/own it. i havent tried to record a video yet.. I'll see what i get.


Turning the graphics or resolution on the game down to a lower one will help also. you can try 640x480 or 800x600

i'm running at 1600x1200 right now i know fraps will bite me in the butt with only 80-90fps

[SamH]

Cheers for the advice, but i think your missing the point, for whatever reason a number of us only get 8 - 15 fps on Fraps with LFS regardless of resolution / quality settings etc ..... didnt used to happen and is fine on other games ( well as fine as fraps is considering it does take a fair bit out the system ), nb im not saying this is down to LFS and needs a look at, just looking for a solution :)
It's definitely not lost on me. I've posted several times in the past, and got about as far as you have with the responses. I was quietly watching your thread to see if you got further :shy:

I've got an AMD64 3000+, 1Gb TwinXS RAM and an XFX 6600GT, all of which is perfectly capable of running LFS at 150fps or more, with 1 or 2 cars on track (and will drop as low as 45fps, spectating a 23-car race start on SO City). As soon as I begin recording in Fraps, I'm down to between 6 and 12 fps with ONE car on-track. The difference between the two states (recording vs not recording) is extreme.

The extreme is beyond anything you can point and say "your AMD64 300+ just isn't good enough to keep up" or "Get a 7800GS". Much lesser systems are getting much better returns on their FPS while recording. The question is.. why aren't ours?

Any takers?

[EDIT] Your post arrived while I was scribing mine. Off to download!!! Cheers! :)

[SamH]

6fps :(

[SamH]

I just turned AA off in the nVidia profile and got a significant jump in performance, up to between 22 and 29fps. :shrug:

[filur]

Only NVidia users with this issue?

I can record a full grid at ~25 fps, 4xAA/AF, getting ~35 fps while not recording, 3GHz Celeron, Radeon 9550SE.

What resolution are you trying to record in, SamH?

[SamH]

What resolution are you trying to record in, SamH?
Playback at 1280x960. Fraps automatically cuts that down to 640x480. It won't record full 1280 resolution, even if selected in the options, according to the documentation.

[filur]

Playback at 1280x960. Fraps automatically cuts that down to 640x480. It won't record full 1280 resolution, even if selected in the options, according to the documentation.

Have you tried recording "full size" and lowering your LFS res? The more pixels for fraps to look at - even if it only saves half - will increase the workload.

[SamH]

Have you tried recording "full size" and lowering your LFS res? The more pixels for fraps to look at - even if it only saves half - will increase the workload.
I'll try dropping it to 640x480 to find a result.. but again we're heading away from the focal point:- Others don't have to do this, with lesser hardware. IS nVidia crap? Do any nVidia users NOT have these problems? What's screwy on my system?

[Ryanry64]

The latest patch completely fixed this for me, so if you're having trouble try it now :thumb:

[Ryanry64]

Okay I figured what is causing this, 32Bit colour modes.

If I switch to 16 I can record and get 60FPS easily, if I go back to 32 I get 8. No idea why it drops that low in 32 bit, but.. meh :shrug:

[SamH]

Okay I figured what is causing this, 32Bit colour modes.

If I switch to 16 I can record and get 60FPS easily, if I go back to 32 I get 8. No idea why it drops that low in 32 bit, but.. meh :shrug:
Well chase me round the room and slap me with a smoked mackerel sandwich.. that's done the trick! From 6fps straight up to 30+

THANK YOU!!!:thumb: :D